Can Christians Let the People Choose?

All my life up until a few years ago I was iffy about many political-religious issues, but one thing I knew was that abortion was wrong. It was murder, and worse, a sin. Thinking back, I feel kinda like Hermione in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone "We might get killed, or worse, expelled!" It's funny because her priorities are obviously out of order. Of course death is worse than expulsion. For most people, the choice is also simple: murder is wrong. If you think killing a fetus is murder than abortion is wrong. We argue over what makes something alive. We squabble over things like rape or the health of the mother or whether the baby will live a healthy and productive life.

Recently my father, an avid pro-lifer, and I had a discussion about abortion. He was convinced that even if I was raped and conceived a child through it that the life I would have would be God's will because God had let it happen to me. I know that choosing to accept God's will (in a very Job-like fashion) is not something that comes easily. I know that my father wouldn't accept things like that because he doesn't care or because he's a stoic, but because he trusts God. Thankfully I have not been in that kind of a position. But really, have we missed the heart of the matter? The issue of pro-choice versus pro-life isn't only about choosing life over death, it's asking the question, who gets to choose?

Years ago in the country of Iran the government decided that everyone in the country was Muslim and that all women should wear the burka. Burkas are symbolic coverings that religious women wear as a sign of their devotion to Allah. It symbolizes their chastity, their virtue, and their love of God, something Christians would call a soft and modest heart. In short, it was a choice to express something beautiful that these women felt in their hearts.

When their government decided that all women should wear burkas, the burka took on a different meaning. It now also is a sign of the control of the government, of women's lack of freedom and choice, lack of freedom even to show her love for God. No longer could those devoted wives show their modesty and special love for God: every woman was all the same. The enforcement of burkas took away the beauty of the woman's heart, it tainted what was a show of intimacy and love and turned it into control and power over the powerless. It is this image that has infected the world. When American women see a woman in a burka, we don't think "Oh, how beautiful that she loves her god so much!" we think of how oppressed her life must be and we pity her. Burkas were never intended to inspire pity, but renown.

The same with conception. Having a baby was not intended to frighten, hedge in, or intimidate. Babies are supposed to be blessing from God, not unfortunate endings to sex. Becoming a mother has the power to unlock love and instincts in women that don't usually come out in any other way. Why is it that most young children want to be like their mothers, considering their mothers their personal role models and heroes? Being a mother is an amazing gift, giving women the opportunity to love their baby into a wonderful new person.

I'm not going to pretend being a mother is easy; I'm sure that isn't the case. I have not had any children, and I'm sure that if that time ever comes, I'll be absolutely terrified... the point is, children were not meant to ruin your life, but to bless it.

Conception is not something that you can easily control. Millions of factors, biological and other, go into it. Yet so many women around the world get pregnant every year. Babies are born in so many different conditions, cultures, language groups, weather patterns, societies, etc. throughout time and history. And like so many other things, sometimes, conception is inconvenient.

People have been aborting babies since biblical times. Witch doctors in some cultures were used, drugs and potions in others. Sometimes women gave themselves miscarriages from stress just knowing how they would be punished for conceiving. Some women had had so many children already that they just couldn't bear having any more. Sometimes more than just the babies life depended on abortion.

The most remembered tag line of the religious pro-life campaign is not to "play God." That somehow, by killing the baby we are taking God's will of conception into our own hands and controlling His power of bestowing life and destroying it. But, could we not say that by stopping abortions we are doing the same thing? Does a heart have to stop beating for the life to be destroyed? How many children really need to grow up in bad home situations, with poor health, in orphanages or foster care for their need to not block life to be satisfied? God can redeem all things, but those same people that vote pro-life, usually also vote pro-death sentence. Moreover, they are the ones complaining of failing schools, of emotional and socially dysfunctional or maladjusted children that their sons and daughters have to go to school with. They complain that murderers and thieves come from certain classes of society and social situations. By forcing people to have children are we filling our society with children that we might be better off without? Children growing up in horrid conditions while we sit in our comfortable homes and complain of the miscreants running around. We complain that our taxes go to welfare, but we support the system that puts many women in circumstances where they cannot support themselves or their children. Then we judge "well it's not OUR fault that THEY got knocked up." The Bible says the only "Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world." James 1.27. No, it doesn't specifically mention single mothers or foster care, but I think you get the idea: it's our job to care about those who cannot care for themselves because they have no family. The church community is their family.

I'm not saying that children from single mothers, born from rapes or any other horrible misfortune don't have anything to offer society. As a teacher in an unfortunate school area, I see the promise of children everyday, but I also see the hardships they muddle through with their families and communities and I wonder, do we really leave these communities any choice?

No. We don't. We, the intellectuals, the members of faith communities, anyone with an opinion, we think we know what's best for everyone. We think that because we know God wouldn't want murder, that we get to judge for them and enforce God's law. The Iranians chose and enforced the burka, and all that was lost was the beauty of it. By enforcing pro-life, yes, life will happen, but the beauty is somewhat lost. The beauty of a woman redeeming a bad circumstance, a misjudgment, even a tragedy, with the choice to give birth, the choice to become a mother, to transform her life into something completely different, is gone because she has to... it's the law.

I think that one reason religious people want to choose, to enforce, is because they don't trust people. They have no hope that women would choose life. Moreover, they think that by some special circumstance of salvation, they now get to pick for everyone. When it comes to life and death, I just don't think I could make that choice. The Bible says, "Judge not, lest ye be judged," which basically means, "it's none of your business, and you don't get to decide, unless you want everyone else to get to decide for you." I'm so thankful that it isn't my choice. It isn't politicians' choice or a judges' choice either. Bringing a life into the world is the mother's choice and hers only. I have hope that women educated about abortion and their choices, women supported by their communities and churches, not shunned or pressured, would choose life. In that moment, when her scared soul embraces the idea of becoming a mother, I'm sure all the angels of heaven would rejoice, whether or not she was a Christian. By stealing her choice, we also steal the beauty of her choosing life.

My other very large beef with the idea of enforcement is that I really believe it is contrary to the gospel. The bible is full of helpful phrases like, "Go and sin no more," but it also shows the love story of God and his people. God gave us freewill, and under no circumstance has He ever taken it away from us. God shows us His way and lets us choose. He doesn't always agree with our choices, but He doesn't give up on us. Every time we run to Him, He's there for us. Whether we choose to be the Prodigal Son or not, He welcomes us with open arms and blessings when we come to Him. In the same way, Jesus was not an enforcer, but an inspiration. People chose to serve Him, to love Him, to follow Him. Even the grossest of sinners, like Saul, like Zaccheus, came to repent and love Him.

If this is the example put before us, and we are supposed to be more like Jesus, how can we do it with enforcement? Enforcement creates compliance in the body, but distance in the spirit. How can we inspire hearts and draw people to God if we are slapping laws and punishments in every one's face? The greatest commandment God gave us was to love God first, and our neighbor as our self. He didn't say judge your neighbor. He says in humility consider others better than you (Philippians 2:3).

What are the churches doing to support those single mothers who already gave birth to babies that could have been aborted? Are we loving them? Are we showing those babies God's love? Are we showing women who have had abortions mercy and grace? Or do we merely judge them, horrified that they could kill a baby? How can the wounds of society heal when all we do is judge one another? Where is mercy? Where is grace? Where is the faith, not only in God, but in humanity? How can we celebrate the beauty of redemption and reconciliation, of lives made new by God's power if we don't get near enough to them to really see God's work there? And because we push away His beautiful creations, we condemn not only them, but we condemn ourselves, blocking what He would do in our hearts by letting ourselves love them.

So I admonish have hope for the women, the couples, the families, the communities in America, and in the world. Believe in them, and let them show you that they can make the right choices. Show your faith that God is at work in the hearts of this great nation. If God is working, we don't need to enforce, but trust and celebrate. He is good, His creations are good. Let them show you their beauty and goodness. Let the women choose.